


That Beauty Still May Live

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, One Shot, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 02:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan has always remembered that side of Grantaire, the soft, quiet side with an eye that admired beauty and a hand that longed to paint it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Beauty Still May Live

**Author's Note:**

> I literally had a dream about this and when I woke up this morning, I had to write it.
> 
> I'm sorry.
> 
> Title is from Shakespeare's 10th Sonnet. Jehan's quote is from his 17th.
> 
> If you want to read a one-sided Jehan/Grantaire relationship, you can. I didn't write it explicitly one way or the other. I also wrote this so that, in theory, it can be a Modern AU or a canon divergence AU, depending on what strikes your fancy.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I don't own them, I only use and abuse them, and all mistakes are mine alone.

When Jehan first met Grantaire, so long ago now he doubts the other man even remembers, Grantaire was leaning against a wall of the Musain, bottle half-raised to his lips, watching a woman. Sneaking glances at the women that frequent the place is commonplace, and many of Les Amis have snuck more than glances, but the way in which Grantaire appraised the woman in front of him was what drew Jehan over. “Sou for your thoughts?” he had said, quietly.

Grantaire had glanced over at him, a small smile curling his mouth. “She is beautiful, no?” Jehan had looked back over at the woman, who, to him, did not seem any different from the rest. “It’s the curve of her neck, see? How fragile it is. And the sharpness of her elbow. And her eyes – how sad they are.” Grantaire was silent for a minute, contemplative. “How I wish I could paint her.”

“If I could write the beauty of your eyes/And in fresh numbers number all your graces,” quoted Jehan.

Grantaire had smiled at him then, a true smile. “Are you a poet, then?”

“Indeed I am. And you, an artist?” Grantaire had nodded. “I am Jean Prouvaire, called Jehan. I have not seen you here before.”

Grantaire had shaken his proffered hand. “I am Grantaire, called R, and I have not been here before. But I saw your noble leader speaking in front of a crowd yesterday and thought I might come see him—see your group in action.”

Jehan had smiled warmly at Grantaire and led him to the upstairs room they used as their meetings.

Jehan has always remembered that side of Grantaire, the soft, quiet side with an eye that admired beauty and a hand that longed to paint it. It’s a side Jehan shares with him, though he tries to put beauty into words and not images. But while Jehan readily shares this side with the world, trying to bring romance and light into the tense proceedings, Grantaire hides the beauty behind drink and sarcasm. Only in certain moments, when he’s not quite drunk but not quite sober, with his head slightly tilted and his eyes on Enjolras, does Jehan see the way his hand twitches, ever so slightly, fingers curling as if around a paintbrush.

The moments may have been more frequent were it not for the frequency with which Enjolras drove Grantaire further into the bottle. That is a side of Enjolras that no one else seems able to see: the cruelty, the coldness. He accuses Grantaire of not caring enough, but watching the harsh lines settle on his face when he looks with disgust at Grantaire, Jehan wants to accuse him of the same thing.

Jehan’s heart breaks for Grantaire every time Enjolras throws a harsh word or look at him, every time he sees the light in Grantaire’s eyes dim. If Jehan could, he would show Grantaire all the beauty of the world that was not Enjolras, but Grantaire has eyes for Enjolras’s beauty alone.

So they fight and argue and Jehan learns, as do all Les Amis, to tune it out and let it run its course.

And it is only a matter of time before things came to a head, where words are uttered that cannot be taken back. What starts as a simple argument escalates into a shouting match unlike any Les Amis have seen, and it ends as abruptly as it starts, with Enjolras shouting, “Leave, Grantaire! You are not wanted here! Leave and never come back. You are worthless to me.”

If Enjolras had said, “to us”, how different things might have been.

But he didn’t, and Grantaire simply stands and leaves, no further words needed. He does not even take the bottle with him.

There is a moment of silence, and then the meeting starts up again.

Jehan is the only one to go after Grantaire.

* * *

Jehan finds Grantaire standing at the edge of the Seine. From the multicolored water directly below him, and the small pots that bob in the water, it appears he has thrown all of his paints into the water. Jehan touches Grantaire’s shoulder gently.

He doesn’t ask why.

Grantaire tells him anyway, in a voice that is as sober as Jehan had ever heard it. “There is no point in painting now,” he says, almost conversationally, staring across the water without blinking. His eyes are surprisingly dry. “It’s as if all the beauty in the world has left it.”

“There is beauty in the world still.” Jehan’s words are not meant to be comforting; they are meant to be truth. Because there is still such beauty in the world, from the way the paints in the river below slowly diluted in the water, to the way the setting sun caught Grantaire’s hair just right, making it look like a darkened halo, to the very curve of the man’s jaw as he clenches it against the pain, the loss, the heartbreak. There is such beauty here, and Jehan almost itches for pen and paper to try and put it into words.

But as Grantaire turns to look at him, Jehan sees the dead look in his eyes and knows that Grantaire has never seen that beauty in himself, only ever in the cruel, cold profile of a blond god with no time to waste on mortals. “You would think so, my poet,” Grantaire says, almost smiling, reaching out to pat Jehan’s cheek gently. “I just pray that you always see that beauty.”

Then he leaves, walking unhurriedly away from the Seine, away from Jehan.

* * *

It is Courfeyrac who arrives at Jehan’s place in the early hours of the morning to tell him, but Jehan, who has not slept at all, wonders if he has always known that this was coming.

Numbly he follows Courfeyrac through the streets of Paris, so different at nighttime, half-hidden in shadow, than they look during the day. They do not go to Grantaire’s apartment, and Jehan realizes they must be headed to Grantaire’s studio. He has never been there before, though he knows the rough location. It’s in a small, quiet building, on the top floor, and it is only when they are halfway up the stairs that Jehan realizes he doesn’t know why he is here. What he has come to see, to find.

But he has come too far now to turn back, and thus when they reach the top of the stairs, he takes only a moment’s pause before pushing the door open.

He doesn’t know what he expected to see, but it is certainly not the outline of Enjolras against the window, shoulders shaking with silent tears. Courfeyrac rushes to Enjolras’s side instantly, of course, but Jehan has no time now for their leader. He looks around instead. “Where…?” he whispers, letting the question trail off.

“They took it already.” Enjolras swallows hard and avoids looking at him. “The body… _his_ body.”

_Say his name!_ Jehan wants to shout at Enjolras. _Say the name of the one you scorned and spurned and drove to this, the one who gave you love and beauty and to whom you gave nothing but spite_.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he fumbles for the candle that he sees the vague outline of, wanting to light it. “Jehan, don’t.” Courfeyrac, this time, his voice full of tears. “You don’t want to see.”

“I do.” Jehan’s voice is quiet but firm, and he lights the candle, the room sputtering slowly into light.

The first thing he sees is the pool of blood on the ground, and it’s as if someone has kicked him in the gut. He doesn’t recall crossing to it, doesn’t recall kneeling by it, doesn’t recall the tears that start coursing down his face, but when he next looks up, that’s where he is.

The walls are covered in writing. Much of it is carved into the wall as if with a knife, some is painted, some, at the bottom, in crooked, wavering writing, he suspects has been written in blood. All the same thing, over and over.

Enjolras.

The name screams down at him from every inch of the room, anger and pain and heartbreak summed up into eight letters repeated again and again.

Except for—there, down at the bottom, down where he must’ve…

It’s written so small that Jehan can barely make it out, but it’s written there all the same.

_I’m sorry_.

Jehan doesn’t delude himself into thinking this is meant for him, or any of Les Amis. In death as in life, Grantaire apologizes to the only one he ever believed in, the one that, in his death, he has failed.

Enjolras is openly weeping, having slid down the wall so that his knees are pulled up to his chest and his head is buried in his hands. Enjolras should not be allowed to weep, to grieve. Not for Grantaire. Not after what he did.

But he doesn’t say anything, just stands, slightly unsteady, and follows Courfeyrac out the door, leaving Enjolras inside with the last of Grantaire as his only company.

The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon, the streets are washed almost in gold, the Seine rippling from dark to light.

It should be beautiful.

But Jehan recalls only Grantaire’s words, and understands them now more than he can ever say. _It’s as if all the beauty in the world has left it_.


End file.
